c. 2000 Religion News Service
(UNDATED) Florida lawyer Erik Stanley likens himself to an interior decorator.
But he doesn’t dabble in paints, wallpaper and decorative borders. Rather, he focuses on one, rather controversial document: the Ten Commandments.
Representing two county courthouses and a school district in Kentucky, Stanley hopes to find a constitutional way for them to re-post the biblical laws in their buildings.
“In order for these displays to be constitutional … you’ve got to make sure that there’s other secular things hanging around,” he said.
Stanley is litigation counsel at Liberty Counsel, a Christian firm based in Longwood, Fla. It is one of several legal groups involved in almost a dozen cases traveling through the courts relating to the Decalogue. Proponents and opponents agree that there currently are more cases than they can ever remember regarding the constitutionality of posting the biblical laws. Even as postings are halted and decisions appealed, groups continue to distribute the laws _ in frames and on book covers _ in hopes of spreading their age-old message without a legal challenge.
One of the current legal cases, regarding a display of the Ten Commandments with about 30 historical documents in an Indiana courthouse, pits organizations commonly known as the ACLU and the ACLJ against each other.
The American Civil Liberties Union generally argues that the commandments posted on government property violate the separation of church and state, while the American Center for Law and Justice _ founded by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson _ counters that they are not only religious documents but an important influence on secular history.
Ken Falk, legal director of the Indiana Civil Liberties Union, views the Ten Commandments as solely a religious document.
“The impetus to publish them is a desire by people to publish what they believe are a strong moral code in the hope that people follow it,” Falk said. “The problem is it’s a strong moral code only if you happen to believe in the underlying religious nature of the code.”
Falk’s branch of the ACLU and a lawyer for the ACLJ are preparing for arguments later this month (Oct. 25) in a case involving the posting of the commandments at a Washington County, Ind., courthouse along with documents such as the U.S. Constitution, the Gettsyburg Address and the Mayflower Compact.
“It’s a profoundly religious document and its religiosity is not diminished in that context at all,” Falk said.
Frank Manion, senior regional counsel of the ACLJ, who is arguing for the county, said there’s “no need to exclude” the Ten Commandments since they, too, are a part of history.
“The idea that some documents are religious and some are secular is ridiculous,” he said. “Religion is part of history.”
In both Indiana and Kentucky, recent legislation encouraging the display of the biblical laws has been accompanied by ACLU lawsuits disputing their constitutionality. The erection of monuments at both state Capitols is in question, pending appellate court hearings.
In Kentucky, the ACLU hailed a judge’s preliminary injunction that the three displays in the courthouses and school district be taken down after it sued. All of the displays included the Ten Commandments and religion-related excerpts from other documents such as the Declaration of Independence.
The state of Kentucky is appealing a judge’s agreement with the ACLU that prevents the erection of a Ten Commandments monument near a popular floral clock on the grounds of the state Capitol in Frankfort.
“What we saw during the legislature and in the bill itself was very, very clear intent to post this monument for the specific purpose of promoting a particular set of religious beliefs,” said Jeff Vessels, executive director of the ACLU of Kentucky.
“We had, for example, debates on the floor of the legislature of the house about whether or not any religion other than Christianity had any redeeming value in the history of our commonwealth … You just had to be there to believe it.”
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Decades ago, the Fraternal Order of Eagles donated the monument _ later put in storage _ to the Kentucky courthouse. The courthouse was just one of many places where the Eagles have donated monuments in the last half century, sparked by a concern in the 1950s by St. Cloud, Minn., Judge E.J. Ruegemer, who was faced with a juvenile offender who had not heard of the Ten Commandments.
“He made a vow that nothing like that was going to happen again in his courtroom if he could help it,” said Marilyn Bozich, supervisor of the program department at the Grand Aerie, or national headquarters of the fraternal organization based in Milwaukee.
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In 1980, the Supreme Court ruled in Stone vs. Graham that a Kentucky law requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools was unconstitutional.
“I think Stone vs. Graham really covers any display, certainly in courtrooms or in schools, wherever at a minimum … there is a potentially captive audience, that is the juries, defendants in a courtroom or the students in a school,” said the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
His Washington-based organization has monitored the interest in Ten Commandments postings and has urged state legislatures not to pass legislation regarding them. While Indiana, Kentucky and South Dakota, have passed such legislation, a dozen other state legislatures considered taking action this year but did not pass any new rules regarding the Ten Commandments.
The Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group that has been promoting the Ten Commandments for several years, plans to launch an advertising campaign about the framed copies of the religious laws.
Kristen Hansen, spokeswoman for the Washington-based council, estimated that her organization has distributed close to 750,000 book covers illustrated with the Ten Commandments. Last fall, they began presenting members of Congress with framed copies of the biblical rules and they are continuing that effort this fall with state legislators.
“You can post them publicly in your own office on Capitol Hill,” she said. “That hasn’t been challenged by the Barry Lynn types … Our efforts to continue to get the Ten Commandments posted in public places will continue.”
Elliot Mincberg, legal director for the Washington-based People for the American Way Foundation, views the continuing push for posting the commandments as part of a general effort by conservative Christians reacting to concerns about school violence.
But Mincberg said they are not completely forbidden in public schools. For example, they might be included in displays that include “sources of ancient law,” he said.
“It’s very much a case-by-case kind of thing, where you can’t say that it’s always forbidden,” he said. “You have to know the specific context.”
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Stanley, the Liberty Counsel litigation lawyer, hopes he can find a context in Kentucky that will pass constitutional muster.
“We’re going to try to come up with a display where the Ten Commandments is integrated in the display and is not dominant and is merely one of the foundations of American law and governance that’s recognized,” he said.
“To have a display on the foundations of American law and governance and to leave out the Ten Commandments would be incomplete because they do form the foundation of much of our criminal justice system.”
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